Press Releases

Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) issued the following statement after President Trump signed an Executive Order regarding the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan.   The White House announced that the order directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend, revise, or rescind four actions related to Obama Administration energy policies that would stifle the American energy industry.  The White House listed the four actions as follows:

1.      An immediate re-evaluation of the so-called Clean Power Plan.

2.      A lift on the ban on federal leasing for coal production.

3.      An end to job-killing restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas, clean coal and shale energy.

4.      Returning regulatory power to the states.

Congressman Griffith said, “The actions outlined in President Trump’s Executive Order will bring relief to the coal and energy industries that have been under regulatory attack for the last eight years.”

“I am pleased that President Trump and his Administration have decided not to proceed with plans to implement the costly, overreaching Clean Power Plan.  From the start, I believed the federal bureaucrats at the EPA had no legal basis for implementing a policy that would have such a negative impact on our local and national economies.”

“The Trump Administration is correct in assessing that there was no legal authority for this unprecedented power grab, and I am hoping to see the CPP dismantled.”

“The effects of the CPP’s excessive and misguided regulations threatened the livelihoods of hardworking American families and jeopardized thousands of jobs.  I am glad we will avoid the detrimental effects of its implementation.”

Background from the White House:

In February 2016, the Supreme Court made the decision to stay the implementation of the CPP.  The CPP was being challenged by over 150 entities, including 28 states, 24 trade associations, 37 rural electric co-ops, and 3 labor unions.  Furthermore, a bipartisan majority in the 114th Congress rejected the CPP's new power plant regulations and existing power plant regulations with two Resolutions of Disapproval. Congressman Morgan Griffith was a co-sponsor of both of these resolutions (H. J. Res. 71 and H.J. Res. 72.); however they were vetoed by President Obama.

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